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In this issue
- New contexts, new challenges: revisiting equal opportunities, particularism, and ethnic relations
by Malcolm Harrison - Comments on 'New contexts, new challenges: revisiting equal opportunities, particularism, and ethnic relations' by Malcolm Harrison
by Paul Watt, Ludi Simpson, Harris Beider and A. Sule Özüekren - Jobs for communities: does local economic investment work?
by Lisa Buckner and Karen Escott - Welfare reform and recession: past labour market responses to job losses and the potential impact of Employment Support Allowance
by Paul Sissons - 'Insiderness', 'involvement' and emotions: impacts for methods, 'knowledge' and social research
by Rachael Dobson
Jobs for communities: does local economic investment work?
Summary
New Labour's policies aimed at regenerating poor communities promote economic investment, yet research on how such investment improves employment prospects for local residents over a sustained period is scarce. Using the Darnall area of Sheffield as a case study, this paper considers the degree to which new sectors of employment have been accessed by residents living in the immediate vicinity of a major retail development. Evidence from the 1981, 1991 and 2001 Censuses includes population, employment, migration and travel to work characteristics, which show that many residents remain marginalised from local jobs, raising important issues for contemporary initiatives promoting retail investment as part of a strategy to tackle worklessness.
